Dropping Acid - GERD and weight loss

MyUpgradedBody

i was recently diagnosed with GERD and i’m not responding well to medication. I noticed moderate success with reducing pain and cough with following the foods guidelines in the book “Dropping Acid” … the downside for sure is that it’s the opposite of what i would be doing to lose weight. i’ve put on four pounds in the past couple weeks because i’m so carb loaded with rice and bread. Not supposed to have fruit, nuts, high fat dairy, seltzer, most tea and coffees, no chocolate, limited seasoning. Its pretty depressing. Anyway, i’m looking for some community here of people really sticking to a low acid diet AND weight loss.

neanderthin

Try a lower carb intervention and it doesn't have to be really low either. The low carb community has had good to excellent results for years treating GERD and most gastrointestinal discomfort. Here's the first actual RCT to basically confirm what they've known all along. It's basically the opposite of the usual advice to eat less meat and consume more grain and keep the fat at a minimum. Actually the one arm of the control group that had the best results were the ones where simple sugar was highly restricted as well as some carbs. All participants had diagnosed GERD and where taken off their medication before the trial. You might try apple cider vinegar or a hydrochloric acid supplement that lowers pH because GERD happens when there's not enough acid in the stomach and pH is pushed higher because of it.

https://journals.lww.com/ajg/Fulltext/2022/10000/The_Effects_of_Modifying_Amount_and_Type_of.24.aspx


The Effects of Modifying Amount and Type of Dietary Carbohydrate on Esophageal Acid Exposure Time and Esophageal Reflux Symptoms: A Randomized Controlled Trial


In conclusion, the present randomized controlled trial indicates that key pH monitoring outcomes of esophageal AET and total number of reflux episodes along with the cardinal GERD symptoms of heartburn and reflux can be improved by a moderate modification in dietary carbohydrate intake that targets reducing intake of simple sugars.

Melwillbehealthy

I agree that cutting out the sugar , and some carbs may help. I believe I was developing GERD. I even got the medication for it but haven’t used it. I’m getting this under control by avoiding sugar. I started doing that because of a diabetes diagnosis, but noticed it’s really helped with the heartburn. I used to go through Tums bottles fast. The last couple of weeks, I’ve really cut down a lot. Also, still eating carbs, but a lot less of the heavy, starchy ones. Last night I had a small portion of brown rice instead of the white I usually eat. I don’t eat bread often. I’ve noticed anything with a sugar component gives me pain. If you’ve got an acidic tummy, I think it takes time to get it into an all alkaline state. I still cough, but a lot less. I’m a work in progress. Good luck with it.

neanderthin

Melwillbehealthy wrote: »

I agree that cutting out the sugar , and some carbs may help. I believe I was developing GERD. I even got the medication for it but haven’t used it. I’m getting this under control by avoiding sugar. I started doing that because of a diabetes diagnosis, but noticed it’s really helped with the heartburn. I used to go through Tums bottles fast. The last couple of weeks, I’ve really cut down a lot. Also, still eating carbs, but a lot less of the heavy, starchy ones. Last night I had a small portion of brown rice instead of the white I usually eat. I don’t eat bread often. I’ve noticed anything with a sugar component gives me pain. If you’ve got an acidic tummy, I think it takes time to get it into an all alkaline state. I still cough, but a lot less. I’m a work in progress. Good luck with it.

The stomach will never and should never be in an alkaline state and that is one of the leading problems for GERD where the pH balance of the stomach is higher, and generally around 3 or 4 where the stomach needs to be around 1 to 1.5 to be efficient and do the job it needs to do. Basically acidity needs to be raised. When food leaves the stomach it's rendered totally alkaline, and actual the alkalinity of the body is tightly regulated by the body and there's really nothing we can do to change that.

The higher pH from what I've gleaned from research is that food in the stomach is not getting digested fast enough or well enough from the pH imbalance and puts persistent pressure on the sphincter muscle where some of the acids gets by that muscle into the esophagus. I suspect that if a person is overeating, especially considering most people consume 45-65% carbohydrates and I suspect mostly refined with lots of sugar that this could and probably is the cause in the elevation of the stomachs pH balance. Going to bed and lying down with a full stomach I suspect must be pretty uncomforable.

yirara

You need to figure out what your Gerd triggers are, really. It could be what's mentioned in the book, it could be something completely different. For me, for example it's eggs (everything containing egg white or yolk), black tea (but not green), lean animal protein, German rye bread, and cream sauces mostly. So I avoid these things and am mostly doing fine.

Melwillbehealthy

@neanderthin yes, the goal for me is create a healthy ph balance in my stomach. I have a stomach which is off balance and has a high acidic level. The goal is to make it more alkaline, but balance it out.

yirara

Melwillbehealthy wrote: »

@neanderthin yes, the goal for me is create a healthy ph balance in my stomach. I have a stomach which is off balance and has a high acidic level. The goal is to make it more alkaline, but balance it out.

Neanderthin is talking about too alkaline stomach acid which is causing reflux, and not too acidic one. It's a theory that's been mentioned a lot in hypothyroidism forums, together with a lack of enough stomach acid.

kshama2001

MyUpgradedBody wrote: »

i was recently diagnosed with GERD and i’m not responding well to medication. I noticed moderate success with reducing pain and cough with following the foods guidelines in the book “Dropping Acid” … the downside for sure is that it’s the opposite of what i would be doing to lose weight. i’ve put on four pounds in the past couple weeks because i’m so carb loaded with rice and bread. Not supposed to have fruit, nuts, high fat dairy, seltzer, most tea and coffees, no chocolate, limited seasoning. Its pretty depressing. Anyway, i’m looking for some community here of people really sticking to a low acid diet AND weight loss.

My mom has silent reflux and found the book “Dropping Acid” very helpful. When she is under increased stress, she needs to do these dietary restrictions. Under normal stress, she just drinks alkaline water, which she used to have to get at a health food store but Walmart carries it now. She's tried adding drops to water or otherwise changing her (hard) water, but it is not as effective as the alkanized water she buys.

Because she eats a lot of bulky, lower calorie food and is very active, she actually struggles to stay above Underweight.

I was ok with the recipes in the original Dropping Acid, but there was a newer cookbook (not the newest, which I didn't look at) that had a vegan chef and I thought a lot of the recipes were unnecessarily restrictive. I think the author, Jamie M.D. Koufman, is gluten free. Some of these recipes were also low fat. My mother could not maintain her weight on this restrictive low acid, low fat, vegan, GF way of eating.

Like @yirara said, find your triggers and avoid those. This will be more sustainable and enjoyable

neanderthin

yirara wrote: »

Melwillbehealthy wrote: »

@neanderthin yes, the goal for me is create a healthy ph balance in my stomach. I have a stomach which is off balance and has a high acidic level. The goal is to make it more alkaline, but balance it out.

Neanderthin is talking about too alkaline stomach acid which is causing reflux, and not too acidic one. It's a theory that's been mentioned a lot in hypothyroidism forums, together with a lack of enough stomach acid.

It sounds counterintuitive, no doubt. Thanks. Cheers

yirara

neanderthin wrote: »

yirara wrote: »

Melwillbehealthy wrote: »

@neanderthin yes, the goal for me is create a healthy ph balance in my stomach. I have a stomach which is off balance and has a high acidic level. The goal is to make it more alkaline, but balance it out.

Neanderthin is talking about too alkaline stomach acid which is causing reflux, and not too acidic one. It's a theory that's been mentioned a lot in hypothyroidism forums, together with a lack of enough stomach acid.

It sounds counterintuitive, no doubt. Thanks. Cheers

Not necessary, once you think about it.

_BlahBlah_BlackSheep_

Have you only seen your regular doctor for this, or have you been referred to a gastroenterologist? If you haven't been referred, you should consider it. I have Laryngopharyngeal reflux, which is similar to GERD. I suffered with no treatment for over a decade because the primary meds used for treatment make me sick (the entire class of drugs). I finally couldn't stand it anymore and asked my doctor for a referral. The gastro had me undergo an endoscopy and we worked on a treatment plan from there. I'm currently on a different med that has me at about a 90% improvement, but it's a non-traditional treatment for this particular issue and I don't think my regular doctor ever would have suggested it.

AnnPT77

I'm assuming (hoping) that OP has had a full and comprehensive medical workup, including appropriate scans, so mentioning this more for others who may be newly experiencing reflux/heartburn and thinking about what to do about it.

I had new reflux/heartburn start without an obvious change in diet or other lifestyle factors, literally never had had heartburn before. I went through a bunch of testing, turned out my past poor habits had pretty much destroyed my gallbladder. I had a thing called adenomyomatosis, which is an uncommon thing, not like sludge or stones.

When they took out the gallbladder, reflux/heartburn was instantly cured. Pathology report showed that it was an ugly, thickened, cholesterolized thing with actual holes in it. 😬

This is a low-probability diagnosis, but within the realm of possible. The condition can coexist with or mask gallbladder cancer, so not really a thing to mess around with. (Mine had no malignancies, thankfully.)